In any organization, there are myriad sources of data and often just as many display and analysis systems for visualizing that data. Sometimes the data can be accessed using a standard web browser, while other data must be viewed in a spreadsheet program, database program, or business intelligence (BI) system. If a user or analyst who needs to view a variety of disparate data sources is lucky, each of these data sources can be viewed in a single medium, such as a web browser. For example, multiple sites may be opened in tabs of the web browser. Each of these sites may be located on different servers, and may have different access rights and require different credentials. For security reasons, these sites do not interact with each other through the web browser. Therefore, in order to perform data analysis that is coordinated across the various sites, the analyst must manually control each of the tabs to show relevant data for the task at hand.
A number of systems allow for disparate data to be aggregated, such as by implementing intricate extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes. Once all the data is in a single location, a variety of views can be realized. For example only, web parts or widgets can be created based on the aggregated data in the SharePoint collaborative web platform from Microsoft Corp. The SharePoint widgets can be distributed across a single page. However, even between SharePoint widgets in a SharePoint site, bidirectional communication and other interaction is limited.
The background description provided here is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.